{"id":277666,"date":"2024-10-21T12:01:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T11:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=277666"},"modified":"2024-10-18T05:23:36","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T04:23:36","slug":"israel-is-a-rogue-nation-it-should-be-removed-from-the-united-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/10\/israel-is-a-rogue-nation-it-should-be-removed-from-the-united-nations\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Is a Rogue Nation&#8211;It Should Be Removed from the United Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_262973\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/netanyahu.png\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-262973\" class=\"wp-image-262973\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/netanyahu-300x168.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/netanyahu-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/netanyahu-768x429.png 768w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/netanyahu.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-262973\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u2018It\u2019s not as if there isn\u2019t a mechanism for expelling a UN member state.\u2019 Screenshot from IsraelPM Youtube Channel\/Government Press Office<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"dcr-1fnjjtg\" data-gu-name=\"standfirst\">\n<div class=\" dcr-16dfovq\">\n<blockquote><p>15 Oct 2024 &#8211;<em> One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Over the past year, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/israel\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Israel<\/a> has launched attacks on multiple countries and occupied territories: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Yet countries and territories aside, Israel has also targeted one specific organization with a series of unprecedented rhetorical <em>and <\/em>violent attacks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Yes, the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/unitednations\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">United Nations<\/a>. We have all witnessed Israel, effectively, declare war on the UN.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Consider the record of recent weeks and months:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">\n<li class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Israel\u2019s prime minister, while standing on stage at the UN general assembly, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/gadebate.un.org\/sites\/default\/files\/gastatements\/79\/il_fl.pdf\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">denounced<\/a> the body as \u201ccontemptible\u201d, a \u201chouse of darkness\u201d and a \u201cswamp of antisemitic bile\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Israel\u2019s outgoing ambassador to the UN <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vj_yxpODJS0\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">shredded<\/a> a copy of the UN charter with a miniature paper shredder while also standing at the podium of the general assembly, and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/liveblog_entry\/outgoing-envoy-to-un-says-bodys-building-should-be-closed-and-wiped-off-the-face-of-the-earth\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">later said<\/a> the UN headquarters in New York \u201cshould be closed and wiped off the face of the Earth\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Israel\u2019s foreign minister <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/UN_Spokesperson\/status\/1841482872529584280\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">falsely accused<\/a> the UN secretary general of not having condemned Iran\u2019s attacks on Israel, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Israel_katz\/status\/1841422324890812763\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">declared<\/a> him \u201cpersona non grata in Israel\u201d and announced that he had \u201cbanned him from entering the country\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">The Israeli government <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/un-commission-accuses-israel-obstructing-oct-7-probe-2024-04-16\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">actively obstructed<\/a> a UN-mandated commission of inquiry trying to collect evidence on the 7 October attacks.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Israel\u2019s parliament is in the process of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/israeli-parliament-votes-label-un-relief-agency-terror-organisation-2024-07-22\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">designating<\/a> a longstanding UN agency, Unrwa, as a \u201cterrorist organization\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">The Israeli military has bombed UN <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2024\/09\/12\/nx-s1-5109856\/unrwa-israel-strike-school-gaza-hamas-war\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">schools<\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/13\/world\/middleeast\/rafah-gaza-aid-israel-unrwa.html\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">warehouses<\/a> and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/israel-bombs-refugee-camps-central-gaza-report\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">refugee camps<\/a> in Gaza for 12 consecutive months, and killed a record 228 UN employees in the process. \u201cBy far the highest number of our personnel killed in a single conflict or natural disaster since the creation of the United Nations,\u201d to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/en\/story\/2024\/06\/1150736\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">quote<\/a> the UN secretary general.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">The Israeli military is now also <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/11\/israel-attack-un-peacekeepers-unifil-pentagon\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">attacking<\/a> UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. According to the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/UN_News_Centre\/status\/1845853320025379054\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">UN<\/a>, \u201cfive UN \u2018Blue Helmets\u2019 serving with UNIFIL in Lebanon have been injured as Israeli forces inflicted damage on UN positions close to the \u2018Blue Line\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">How is any of this OK? Acceptable?<em> Legal<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Perhaps the biggest question of all: how is Israel still allowed to remain a member of the UN? Why has it not yet been expelled from an organization that it is relentlessly and shamelessly attacking and undermining? Sure, there are other human rights abusers that remain card-carrying members of the UN \u2013 Syria, Russia and North Korea, to name but a few \u2013 but none of them have killed UN employees <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/un-chief-says-lack-accountability-un-staff-killings-gaza-unacceptable-2024-09-11\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">en masse<\/a>; none of them have sent tanks to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/israel-orders-evacuation-more-southern-lebanese-towns-amid-rising-displacement-2024-10-12\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">invade a UN base<\/a>; none of them have \u201c<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/opiniojuris.org\/2024\/10\/09\/israel-must-be-expelled-from-the-united-nations\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">refused to comply with more than two dozen UNSC resolutions<\/a>\u201d. It has been more than 60 years since <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SCProcedure\/status\/1841493859693416572\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">any country in the world<\/a> dared make the UN secretary general himself \u201cpersona non grata\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">To be clear: it\u2019s not as if there isn\u2019t a mechanism for expelling a UN member state. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/about-us\/un-charter\/chapter-2\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">Article 6<\/a> of the UN charter says:<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">\u201cA Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Now some might point out that no member state has ever been expelled from the UN under Article 6. Plus, the United States, which has <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2021\/5\/19\/a-history-of-the-us-blocking-un-resolutions-against-israel\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">vetoed<\/a> over 50 UN security council resolutions critical of Israel since the early 1970s, would never allow such a \u201crecommendation of the Security Council\u201d to be made.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">It\u2019s a valid objection. History, however, teaches us that there are workarounds to security council vetoes. As the international law professor and former US state department adviser Thomas Grant <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/opiniojuris.org\/2022\/10\/18\/removing-russia-from-the-security-council-part-one\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">pointed out<\/a> in October 2022, while making his own case for expelling Russia from the United Nations in the wake of Vladimir Putin\u2019s illegal invasion of Ukraine, \u201cUN members on two occasions in the past have judged a particular Member delegation no longer fit to sit at the organization\u2019s table. On both occasions, the UN improvised a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">In 1971, socialist and non-aligned nations in the Global South voted in the UN general assembly to recognized the People\u2019s Republic of China as \u201c<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/web-archive-2017.ait.org.tw\/en\/un-res-2758-voted-to-admit-communist-china.html\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations<\/a>\u201d and thereby replaced the representatives from the Republic of China (Taiwan), which had been a founding member of the UN. ROC was out, PRC was in \u2013 and it was the general assembly, not the security council, that decided it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Three years later, relying again not on the UN charter but its own \u201crules of procedure\u201d as the human rights lawyer and former UN official Saul Takahisi has <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/opiniojuris.org\/2024\/10\/09\/israel-must-be-expelled-from-the-united-nations\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">noted<\/a>, the UN general assembly \u201cvoted to refuse to recognize the credentials of the South African delegation\u201d and \u201cbarred South Africa from participation in the Unga\u201d until 1994.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Oh, and the two main reasons cited by the UN general assembly for suspending South Africa\u2019s membership? Its practice of apartheid against the indigenous Black population and its illegal occupation of neighboring Namibia. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">Crucially, as Thomas Grant has <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/opiniojuris.org\/2022\/10\/18\/removing-russia-from-the-security-council-part-one\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">written<\/a>, \u201cthe move against South Africa followed no precise procedural pathway in the UN charter or existing UN practice\u201d and the UN showed how \u201can improvisatory ethos prevails, when the member states judge a matter important enough that they must act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">So what is more \u201cimportant\u201d for the UN member states right now than attacks on the UN itself by a single member state? On the UN\u2019s authority, personnel, headquarters and charter? On Saturday, 40 countries issued a joint statement <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/40-countries-condemn-israel-attacks-un-peacekeepers-lebanon\/\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">condemning<\/a> Israel\u2019s brazen and ongoing assault on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon but talk is cheap. UN member states need to <em>act<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">The Israeli government may want to pretend that the United Nations, and the general assembly in particular, is irrelevant, impotent and filled with antisemitic bias, yet Israel only exists today because of a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/United-Nations-Resolution-181\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">UN general assembly resolution<\/a>. The country\u2019s own <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/20th_century\/israel.asp\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">1948 Declaration of Independence<\/a> makes seven different references to the United Nations, all of them super-positive and ever-so-grateful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">So evicting Israel from the UN, or at least suspending its participation in the general assembly as a first step, would send a powerful message \u2013 both to the people of Israel and to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1n1orvu\">That the authority of the United Nations still matters. That the lives of UN staff and peacekeepers also matter. And that one rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it.<\/p>\n<p>_________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/mehdi-hasan-1488221651-440x440-e1534255643915.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-116661\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/mehdi-hasan-1488221651-440x440-e1534255643915.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Mehdi Hasan is the CEO and editor-in-chief of the new media company <\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/zeteo.com\/subscribe\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">Zeteo<\/a><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/zeteo.com\/subscribe\"  data-link-name=\"in body link\">.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2024\/oct\/15\/israel-united-nations\" >Go to Original &#8211; theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>15 Oct 2024 &#8211; One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":116661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[417,1854,87,865,88,767,427,2159,124,70,965,1025],"class_list":["post-277666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-united-nations","tag-bullying","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine","tag-rogue-states","tag-united-nations","tag-usa","tag-war-crimes","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277669,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277666\/revisions\/277669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}